


A Heart So Small yet So Mighty

by SouthernBird



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Dealing with Season Three Feels, Implied Sexual Content, Internal Conflict, M/M, Mutual Pining, Retrospective, Sacrifice, Self-Sacrifice, Symbolism, Unrequited Love, War, depictions of violence, unedited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-07
Updated: 2017-08-07
Packaged: 2018-12-12 04:06:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11729157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SouthernBird/pseuds/SouthernBird
Summary: However, it would be on that day that a Red Lion descended upon his base with a leader shaken by his own barely-sewn traumas along with his impulsive right hand man that Kolivan would finally step down a dark and foreboding path of an additive concept, as though he is guided by a siren’s call to pluck the fruit of a forbidden tree to take a ravenous bite.The name would be Lance.





	A Heart So Small yet So Mighty

**Author's Note:**

> I woke up this morning hit with sad feels over the possibilities over this rare ship. Thank you to the lovely people on Twitter that helped make Kolivance a staple in my Lance ships. Shance included because it's my true OTP and Season 3 gave me a lot of bones for their angst.

Since the beginning of his small existence in the universe, all Kolivan has known is war. 

War is the stench of burning funeral pyres of fallen Blades that risked their own souls for the feeble prospect of freedom. War is the disregarding of his own wounds that bleed and fester to tend to his small but willing rebel group so that they may have the determination to follow him as he would do for them. War is the waking moments of restless sleep where the nightmares all culminate in the same fears; that no matter how long or how hard he pulls at the chains of oppression that clatter and rattle at his efforts, Zarkon will still _always_ have him pinned down like a poor howling beast all the same. 

War, after so long, becomes easy. It becomes second nature, and at his worst, it is all Kolivan knows to fall back upon when all sense of makeshift diplomacy crumbles before him because of his heritage. War is chaotic, by far lacking in all of the kindness that civility would allow otherwise. 

War is, stated correctly, hell, and Kolivan is a demon hellbent on leaving a wake of unsettled peace in the hopes that one day, the blood on his hands will finally be worth it.

It was this way and would be this way until Kolivan was sent a gift of hope from a brave Galra, their fallen soldier Ulaz, who for a moment, the leader found he greatly mourned. Sacrifices are aplenty in battle or even less so, and to have that reminder rekindled by Ulaz had made himself weave the story into a great victory they all secretly cling to like children cling to their fairy tales of admirable heroes. 

However, it would be on that day that a Red Lion descended upon his base with a leader shaken by his own barely-sewn traumas along with his impulsive right hand man that Kolivan would finally step down a dark and foreboding path of an additive concept, as though he is guided by a siren’s call to pluck the fruit of a forbidden tree to take a ravenous _bite_. 

The name would be Lance. 

At first, Kolivan will admit, that the cocky nature of the Blue Paladin was a horrific character flaw. Arrogance gets a Blade nothing but death, grants them nothing but the confidence to reveal themselves in ways that would surely be their end. As a leader of a flock of warriors, he has in every way determined that arrogance would not be tolerated despite permitting himself praise where it was due for the dire sake of morale.

Yet, this is the same boy that stepped to his side in the solitude of an observatory wing when his eyes found a shell of a man that gave the commands to send so many to a perilous and unknown fate, a leader that has somehow escaped death’s wicked and violent embrace to live another day while so many others have died for his sacrifices, _mourning_. Antok’s death, the death of the multitudes of good soldiers gone by his own hand, still throb in a fresh laceration that continues to spread. To admit this is a weakness in his mind for he is to stand as a beacon of the fight, a foundation of a force willing to do what is best for the collective rather than his self.

This is the same boy that came to him, stayed in the silence with him to finally whisper sadly, _they would have wanted you to live on._

It did not take Kolivan long after to realize the truth: that if there may be some idea that he understands more than war that it would be how the masks people wear can crack. 

Hairline fractures riddle and trail in creeks and fissures along the glass of Lance’s own mask, each day of struggle and of conflict increasing the pressure to deepen the flaws. The tiniest of tones in half-hearted jokes and lackluster show offs hint at a soldier who has lost his way when the guidance of a leader he so profusely admired is gone. 

How frightening for them all of them, for those that remained, that there is a mystery to this universe that cannot once press before the wonderings of where the Black Paladin has been sent to. Lance, for all his hot-breathed flourishes of wanted praise and attention, becomes quieter, the bags of his eyes so blue tugging further down, the frowns of his lips creasing deeper into chasms that are nearly heartbreaking. 

Kolivan is a man of observation, and it has been the truest testament of his survival. This boy, tiny in comparison to the Galra ranks of the rebel group, survives by other lonelier means. The mask that is so assuredly breaking is a sign of a soldier about to risk it all because there is nothing more to lose. Despite the heaviness that weighs on the Blue Paladin’s shoulders, there is a tension, a furthering of a call to arms, and Lance steps up in spite of the tremors in his body and the shakes in his heart to be what he hopes _Shiro_ would be proud of. 

It is then that their secret blooms in dark corners where the light of eyes cannot find them. 

There is a desire there to be necessary, something peeks through the fractures of Lance’s mask to reveal the navy depths of swirling gossamer that prognosticates of twisting shadow limbs rising from the abyss to drag one down, down where breath of air can no longer be found, and only darkness awaits. Against the wisdom that has been honed sharp with his years, the Galra should walk away, be only a support where the boy needs one. 

But, a tug on his heartstrings, played perfectly when there is a crack on that lovely face before in the bunker for a discussion of the Puig mission weeks in advance, draws him into a fire that will only prove to consume him in his entirety. 

It’s innocent, truly, at first, nothing more than offerings of specialized training sessions. The basics are at the beginning: hand-to-hand, self defense against a bigger foe, how to disarm bombs of most caliber and the such. He can breathe in the human’s determination, can be the hand along that small back as he guides him where Shiro can no longer do so in ways though it’s in the ways the man never did. 

The first instance of something that should have remained on the spectrum of camaraderie yet dropped low into the heat of bedroom trysts was when Lance asked to be taught to use a sniper rifle. The request was horrifically trivial at the time and the Galra was almost able to use his lack of full expertise of the art of snipers as an excuse, but the very idea of another knowing Lance as he did boiled a jealousy hot in his bones that he could not deny him. 

It had been going well, very well, _too well_ , Kolivan pressed along Lance’s back while lowly grunting in the boy’s the tips that he was taught himself with the briefest of routines; breathe in, then out, and keep the shoulder firm for the possible recoil. The boy was a damn natural, the Blue Paladin shooting each target as though he were born with the rifle in his hand. 

Though his face holds a constant mask of indifference, Kolivan admitted to his private thoughts he’s proud of this Paladin. 

The shift came when the targets finally faded away, when Lance’s rifle slowly descended from its position to lay on the ground to allow the sniper to press closer, to move his hips to slot back against Kolivan’s in a tease so blindsiding that suddenly erupted a fire of desire that threatened to burn them into ashes, ashes like that of incinerated corpses for miles wide. 

They would both be burned, and then _burn_ , become simmering bodies clinging to one another in the throes of dire passion that is more heartbreak than love, that is more folly than for the better good between them. Lance, gods, he was— _is—_ a vision, a pure vision of lithe beauty with skin a delectable hue like that Kolivan had never seen before. Those eyes captured him, lead him down into a sea of dampened lust, dragged him into a sadder side of sex than should ever be fathomed. 

Lance cried, and Kolivan felt a hardened part inside his soul wilt at the sight, dilapidated into a carcass that regretted pining for a young man trying to learn how to be strong when the source of his strength was ripped from his fingers, forced away when he truly needed it most. 

It would be at the end as they lay in the bittersweet afterglow while hoping against hope that others did not attempt to find them that Lance whispered again, tears still fresh along those blue eyes, grief still clutching at his throat. 

_‘I wanted it to be him… but now I want it to be you, and I’m so… hurt.’_

And even now, months long past since then, even as Lance still comes to his side, still defends his honor against the citizens of freed planets because that is just the good that he is, still resplendent in all the glorious ways that Kolivan cannot conceive when he shyly smiles to say _I love you_ , it’s when they lay in the shadows of Lance’s bedroom that it all breaks, that the mask falls apart. Even after Shiro has returned to their ranks, has nearly died to return to his team so that he can struggle in the trenches with the rest of these dumb bastards that have the sickening drug of hope laced on their tongues, the damage is done. 

When Kolivan holds his lover, when the rebel leader embraces him close so that he can smell something eluding to rain showers and salt tides that is nothing more than Lance entirely, he realizes, with a burdened heart that is so fatigued, so that is sorrowful that he cannot take his own mask and place it over Lance. It’s a revelation so deplorable, etched into its frame a wretched scheme of endless sacrifice of one’s heart that Kolivan, for the first time in his life, may cry for a living instead of a dead. 

For a heart so small yet so mighty can too fall into a wreck of lost dreams, can hollow itself for the sake of the universe all under the guise of being for the ‘greater good.’ 


End file.
